Queen drummer/songwriter/singer Roger Taylor is looking for vocalists and musicians in order to “assemble the most talented band to perform Queen’s music, outside of Queen themselves, of course, to carry on the celebration.” Taylor’s just launched a talent search with those chosen given the opportunity to star in the Queen Extravaganza Live Tour in 2012. Taylor’s actively involved in the Extravaganza, serving as producer and music director.

“The Queen Extravaganza will not be a traditional tribute show. It’s a brand-new show specially designed to enable fans to celebrate the music of Queen in a heart-stopping event,” explained Taylor, adding, “It’s going to be spectacular. It’s going to be very visual, there are going to be some shocks and some tremendous surprises. It will be a rock celebration in the royal tradition.”

Auditions began yesterday and are open to vocalists, guitarists, drummers, bass players and keyboard players, according to the official press release. Taylor’s searching for musicians to make up a 5-piece band as well as three vocalists. For more details, visit www.queenextravaganza.com.

The scoop on the auditions: “The audition process involves two video audition rounds to be judged by both a panel of appointed judges and the public. Taylor will be present to judge the final audition round, which will be held live in Los Angeles in early December. In addition, VEVO, the world’s leading music video and entertainment platform, will unveil exclusive content from each audition round as well as and The Queen Extravaganza finals.”

Taylor said, “There are great musicians everywhere, and this is a really exciting challenge for us to try and unearth some of those musicians from the US.”

More on Roger Taylor and Queen [Courtesy of Hollywood Records]:

Together with band mates Brian May, John Deacon and the unforgettable Freddie Mercury, Roger Taylor brought a new dimension to live music. The band has released a total of 18 chart-topping albums and 18 #1 singles, while selling more than 300 million albums worldwide, making them one of the biggest rock acts of all time. They’ve received seven Ivor Novello awards in the U.K., were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2001, the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2003, the UK Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004, and even received their own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, in October 2002.

As the centerpiece in the 40th anniversary celebration, Queen’s entire 15-album studio catalog is being reissued in a series of deluxe editions. Every note is being tweaked, every piece of artwork is being cleaned, freshened up and resourced, wherever necessary, with the legendary Bob Ludwig doing the remastering, working from the original source material. The first installment, comprised of the first five LPs (QUEEN, QUEEN II, SHEER HEART ATTACK, A NIGHT AT THE OPERA, A DAY AT THE RACES) was released May 17, the second installment (NEWS OF THE WORLD, JAZZ, THE GAME, FLASH GORDON, HOT SPACE) was just released on September 13 and the final installment is set to come out later this year.

September 5th would have been legendary Queen frontman Freddie Mercury’s 65th birthday. To mark the occasion, Queen streamed their historic 1986 concert Queen Live At Wembley Stadium for 48 hours on YouTube. Stars such as Katy Perry, members of Foo Fighters and My Chemical Romance took to YouTube to present video tribute to Mercury. The entire two day celebration garnered over 4 million views.

Google also paid tribute by posting worldwide a rare and extraordinary tribute to Freddie Mercury with a very special Google doodle on its homepage. The animated Google doodle was created to celebrate the life and talents of the legendary Queen frontman. The worldwide tribute from Google is something that doesn’t happen very often. Google has previously run video doodles for other legendary entertainers including John Lennon.

Journalist covering the entertainment industry for more than 15 years. Member of the Broadcast Film Critics Association, Alliance of Women Film Journalists, and President of the San Diego Film Critics Society.